New Bill Wants to Replace Employee Class Actions with “Group Actions”

Lawmakers and a host of civil rights law groups introduced a bill this week meant to undo a Supreme Court ruling that limits the right of workers to pursue class action lawsuits.

The bill, spearheaded by Minnesota Senator Al Franken, was introduced on the one-year anniversary of the Wal-Mart v. Dukes decision, which held that a group of women could not pursue a class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart for gender discrimination simply based on their gender alone. The Supreme Court ruled that the women – and subsequent employees bringing future class action lawsuits – must show a common injury, such as a company-wide discriminatory policy, before the case can advance as a class action. Franken’s bill would undo that standard and allow a “group action” to be permissible.

“People banded together to enforce civil rights are far more powerful than someone trying to do it alone,” Franken said about the bill, which is called the “Equal Employment Opportunity Restoration Act of 2012.”

The lead Plaintiff in the Dukes case, Betty Dukes, was also present.

“Our civil rights are only as valuable as the means exist to protect them,” Dukes said. “By making it much harder to bring civil right class action, the Supreme Court weakened our rights to protect against sex discrimination.”

Despite optimism that the bill will someday restore workers’ rights to fight against gender discrimination, supporters of the bill were realistic about its very slim chances of going anywhere this session.

Lead House sponsor, Connecticut Representative Rosa DeLauro, said her main goal is to simply build the number of co-sponsors, adding, “I don’t feel very much is going to happen in the House of Representatives between now and November. I think that we’ve laid the groundwork here, but we will continue the fight.”